the English language is so huge and borrowed a lot that the people I see in ESL seem to struggle a lot with the bulky and sometimes impractical uses we have for language.- well, yes, this. *g* plus, pronunciation "rules" in English are really more exceptions than rules, or alternatively, really complete anarchy. i know people have trouble with a lot of that, but i guess it's hard for me to form an opinion one way or another without knowledge of a whole hell of a lot more languages than i do, y'know?
i agree that learning languages earlier would be a plus for all concerned, but for people who grow up in multilingual homes in the US, the pressure to focus on English is always going to be much higher than the pressure to keep/deepen their knowledge of their mother tongues. it's a matter of survival- in class, in terms of general communication, information purposes, etc.- rather than a matter of learning, and that's a completely different problem than when to introduce language classes, yeah?
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Date: 2009-04-07 08:43 pm (UTC)i agree that learning languages earlier would be a plus for all concerned, but for people who grow up in multilingual homes in the US, the pressure to focus on English is always going to be much higher than the pressure to keep/deepen their knowledge of their mother tongues. it's a matter of survival- in class, in terms of general communication, information purposes, etc.- rather than a matter of learning, and that's a completely different problem than when to introduce language classes, yeah?